Numerous marine organism-derived anticancer drugs are either already in human cancer clinical trials or advancing in preclinical development toward that vitally important objective. Others are in earlier stages of development. Described herein are novel anticancer drug candidates based on a marine organism, the marine sponge Ircinia ramosa. (Pettit, G. R., et al., Biosynthetic products for anticancer drug design and treatment: the bryostatins, In Anticancer Drug Design, Ed. by B. Baguley, Academic Press, San Diego, Calif., 2002, pp. 203-235; Clamp, A., et al., The clinical development of the bryostatins, Anti-Cancer Drugs 2002, 13, 673-683; O'Brien, M. et al., Synthesis of the C(1)-C(16) fragment of bryostatins, Tetrahedron Lett. 2002, 43, 5491-5494; Saad, E. D., et al., Phase II study of dolastatin 10 as first-line treatment for advanced colorectal cancer, Am. J Clin. Oncol. 2002, 25, 451-453; van Kesteren, C., et al., Clinical pharmacology of the novel marine-derived anticancer agent Ecteinascidin 743 administered as a 1- and 3-h infusion in a phase I study, Anti-Cancer Drugs 2002, 13, 381-393; Endo, A., et al., Total synthesis of Ecteinascidin 743, J Amer. Chem. Soc. 2002, 124, 6552-6554; Jimeno, J. M., A clinical armamentarium of marine-derived anticancer compounds, Anti-Cancer Drugs 2002, 13, S15-S19; Paterson, I., et al., Total synthesis of altohyrtin A (spongistatin 1): an alternative synthesis of the CD-spiroacetal subunit, Tetrahedron Lea. 2002, 43, 3285-3289; Crimmins, M. T., et al., Asymmetric total synthesis of spongistatins 1 and 2, J. Amer. Chem. Soc. 2002, 124, 5661-5663; Cragg, G. M., et al., Medicinals for the millennia. Ann. New York Acad. Sci. 2001, 953, 3-25; Vedejs, E., et al., A total synthesis of (−)-Hemiasterlin using N-Bts methodology; J. Org. Chem. 2001, 66, 7355-7364; Faulkner, D. J., Marine natural products, Nat. Prod. Rep. 2001, 18, 1-49, Faulkner, D. J., Marine natural products. Nat. Prod. Rep. 2000, 17, 7-55.)
In the sponge phylum Porifera, the order Dictyoceratida contains very productive families in terms of biologically active constituents and Ircinia ramosa is a member of one, the Ircinidae family. The Ircinia genus is known in the Indo-Pacific area including Malaysia, Semporna, Borneo and Papua New Guinea (Gosliner, T. M., et al., Coral Reef Animals of the Indo-Pacific, In Sea Challengers, Monterey, Calif., p. 25, 1996; Colin, P. L., et al., Tropical Pacific Invertebrates, Coral Reef Research Foundation, p. 53, 1995.